new moon in Leo: moon report by alice sparkly kat

The New Moon

The New Moon occurs simply when the Moon lines up to be exactly between the Sun and the Earth so that its light from the Sun is not visible from Earth. Before the event of electric lighting, this was most obvious as a period of darkness from which the Moon would, later, emerge as a crescent. Thus, the New Moon has come to be associated with the end of one cycle, the beginning of another, the sowing of seeds, and the period between Christ’s Death and Resurrection. Though the moon is not visible by the Earth during the New Moon, it is actually during this phase that the moon is closest to the Sun and feels its rays most strongly. If the Moon were a phone, this would be when it is getting charged after a full cycle of use.

The moon represents the projected past self at any point in time, how one remembers, while the Sun is the projected future self, how one envisions. Both the Full Moon and the New Moon represent the consolidation of these two selves but, while the material plane (Earth) is between the celestial bodies and becomes the site of action during the Full Moon, the site of action is hidden from the Earth, the conscious plane, during the New Moon. The New Moon is a phase dealing with the imagination, a time where we are not doing anything actively or making decisions consciously but letting go of or reshaping something to make room for something new.

The New Moon in Leo

The Moon is an agent of subjective change. Whenever transiting conjunct to a body, it warps it ever so slightly so that a new consideration, intentional or not, takes place. With the Moon transiting across the Sun in its own sign, the areas of your life in which you are the most dynamic, in which you perform the most, that one that inspires all of your ideas, enjoys a recharge and rebirth. Though ever aspect to the Sun affects the house of your chart in which Leo appears, this month’s New Moon is a direct change, affecting it in the area of life that will change itself, not in association through anything else.

A Further Look at This Month

The Sun trines both Saturn and Uranus this month in Sagittarius and Aries respectively. The trine aspect is usually one signifying slow development, never a sudden hit, but one that take two element of life and creates the awareness of a stable and firm structure of acknowledgment between them. The two trines are happening in the fire signs this month and to planets that are naturally oppositional. This means that there will be a significant development of the things that give you a sense of purpose in life this month.

Sun trine Saturn will tap you on the shoulder and remind you of your responsibilities. Depending on where Sagittarius is in your chart, you have been restructuring something in your life to make it more manageable and practical. As the Sun rotated around the ecliptic, it moved closer to, further, then closer again to Saturn in Sagittarius. Before December, we were still considering the affects of our last Sun-Saturn cycle and the ramification of how we limited ourselves. December to March was a period of free expression and experimentation with new boundaries. From March to June we defined those new boundaries and got to work with the necessity of a kind of tediousness exasperated by the Saturn retrograde. When the Sun opposed Saturn in June, we felt that there were things we had to plan to do and get done according to plan. This period was the culmination of the process of turning our ideas into events or formulas. As the Sun trines Saturn for the last time before it begins its last quarter, the end of this July and beginning of August is the best time to share all we have learned and created this past year to those around us.

As soon as we take on the task of tangibly sharing, however, the Sun makes an aspect with Uranus. Uranus tends to wake up whatever it hits abruptly. If you have Moon in Aries, for example, you have been in the process of seeing your past, especially in association with groups you identified with, in a new light. If you have Sun in Aries, we may have changed your identification with certain groups to rebel against your own old goals. Because the Sun trines Uranus in the middle of August, we must be prepared to reevaluate the very structures we have just finished creating. We must write our rules so that they are made to be broken.

This Month in a Nutshell

If you have been creating structures that liberate you from your past, you will be forced to redo them to liberate you from your present. If you have been reforming those around you, you will be forced to reform yourself. If you have been planning a revolution for the circumstances that surround you, you will stage an internal revolution that changes you from within. Whatever we are planning is more than a break or continuation of what we have been doing – it is the process of re-explaining, to ourselves, of how we stage trajectory as a narrative.

alice sparkly katis a Brooklyn-based astrologer. she has written and lectured extensively on astrological research at Bruce High Quality Foundation University, Dixon Place, and Ars Nova.